This invention relates to an automotive electronic speed control for vehicles (cruise control), and more specifically to a new safety disable or cut out switch for an automotive speed control system.
Present day automotive electronic speed control or cruise control systems can be manually switched on or off, or temporarily disabled and enabled by electromechanical switches located proximate the vehicle driver. As a necessary safety requirement, the vehicle cruise control is automatically disabled by depression of the vehicle brake pedal.
Also, vehicles equipped with traction control systems that limit wheel spin when the traction control system detects that one or more drive wheels are spinning, or detects loss of traction, will automatically disable the vehicle cruise control system when loss of traction is detected.
Various electronic speed control systems for motor vehicles utilize one or more detectable conditions to either prevent engagement of, or automatically disengage the speed control system. Some of the conditions monitored by a cruise control system and used as a basis for engagement or disengagement of the cruise control system are brake on, vehicle speed too low, park/neutral engaged (automatic transmission), clutch engaged (manual transmission), engine RPM too high, and the ratio of engine speed to vehicle speed out of an acceptable range.                In U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,231 issued Dec. 26, 1989 to Frantz; disclosure is made of a means to disable a speed control resume switch if it is found in an engage condition at the same time that normal speed control cut outs are in effect.        Takahashi, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,806 issued on May 11, 1999 discloses a vehicle speed control system that includes a sensing camera for measuring the distance and speed of a forward vehicle in front of a controlled vehicle, and means to automatically adjust the speed of the controlled vehicle to maintain a set following distance of the controlled vehicle behind the forward vehicle.        In U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,657 issued to Mann on Dec. 26, 2000 an imminent icing condition detector employing an infrared sensor that monitors a road surface condition from a motor vehicle is disclosed. When the sensor signals the likelihood of road icing conditions a control circuit initiates the dispensing of a de-icing, anti-icing or traction substance.        U.S. Pat. No. 6,216,082 issued Apr. 10, 2001 to Minowa, et al., discloses a means to control the speed and acceleration/deceleration of a controlled vehicle and to automatically change the speed or acceleration/deceleration of the controlled vehicle relative to a detected forward vehicle, and to include other road conditions such as road gradient in the speed or acceleration/deceleration calculations.        In U.S. Pat. No. 6,281,806 issued Aug. 28, 2001 to Smith, et al., a driver road hazard and warning system is disclosed that senses objects ahead of a vehicle, and intelligently determines if the presence of the object on or near the current path of the vehicle justifies alerting the vehicle driver. If the system determines a driver alert is required, the system directs light onto the object and is capable of maintaining light on the object even as both the vehicle and object move relative to each other.        In U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,944 issued Sep. 4, 2001, to Tange, et al., disclosure is made of an automatic automotive velocity control for a motor vehicle that will automatically disengage if the apparatus determines that the road surface has a low coefficient of friction. Also, if the driver requests to engage the automatic velocity control system and the system detects a low road surface coefficient of friction, a warning is issued to the driver and the driver must reinitiate the request to engage the velocity control system.        In U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,702 issued Feb. 26, 2002 to Tange, et al., disclosure is made of an apparatus for automatically controlling vehicular velocity so as to maintain an inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle, and an apparatus feature that releases the follow up run control system in a manner that allows the vehicle to transition from an automatically controlled speed to a manually controlled speed with no noticeable speed irregularities even on a road surface with a low frictional coefficient.None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe this instant invention as claimed.        